Card Check: It’s Union Organizers, Not Employees, With the ‘Choice’

At today’s Senate HELP Commitee hearing on the Employee Free Choice Act, the same old propaganda line was trotted out: The Employee Free Choice Act does not eliminate the secret ballot, it only gives employees a choice between using “card check” or continuing to rely on an election with a secret ballot. It’s just a choice.

In the real world, this is bunk. From the bill text (H.R. 1409, exactly the same as H.R. 800 in the 110th Congress):

If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining hassigned valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bar gaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection (a).